Concluding Observations
It is frequently assumed that when language of procreation and birth is applied to God, it helps transcend and even contradict any patriarchal limitation of God to maleness and fatherhood by introducing also maternal features.
However, the discourse of birth and generation in the New Testament, in particular the Gospel of John where this discourse is of vital importance, cannot be interpreted without carefully considering the theories about human reproduction, the symbolic worlds of meaning, and the postnatal rituals that at the time provided the sounding board for such terms and notions. In antiquity giving birth was not necessarily giving life - not primarily because birth might almost as easily lead to death as to life, but because life was assured and ultimately provided by the father. Women evidently gave birth and nurtured the child, but the father was ideally, scientifically, and ritually cast as the formative provider and the giver of life. This essay has explored how the string and configuration of generational terms in the Gospel of John, which has had an immense impact on Christian theology, is deeply embedded in this antique discourse. The Son, who is monogenetically begotten by the Father, is one with the Father in his will and mission, and has by his Father been given the quality of having life in himself. Sharing in his Father’s life-giving capacity, the Son, sent by the Father, fulfils his mission by generating and empowering further children of God through the divine spirit-sperm which shapes and forms them. This may refer to a ritual of initiation whereby those who believe in him are begotten by God to become his children - and call him their Father.Works Cited
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